Traveling Geeks in London

So What Did We Accomplish?

jeff saperstein — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:55:10 +0000

Jeff observing Kensington resident grandson Harry

This morning I spoke with Roland Harwood, our counterpart at NESTA, who did so much to make The Geeks trip to London as productive and beneficial as we all could conceive. We agreed it was an extraordinary experiment with a leap of faith that our formal and informal encounters would have both short and long term beneficial impact on the region as well as for everyone involved.

Our visit, sponsored by NESTA, EEI and other donors, was a pilot experiment to see what would happen if we could turn bloggers, authors, and videocasters loose to communicate about innovation in London/Cambridge. Using the connectivity and immediacy of the Web in service of extending “knowing” rather than just knowledge about London/Cambridge, we took the leap.

The number of blog posts, twitters, videos, podcasts and photos is prodigious. Posted is a wide range of work that we plan to categorize for easy access.

The site itself, built and maintained by the Traveling Geeks, is an example of what can be done to dynamically archive the collective experiences on this unique journey. Hopefully, it may affect how technology is used to build community through interactivity on the web for many organizations.

Tens of thousands have followed the twitters; thousands more will see the postings, photos, and videos and will see/hear the videos and podcasts. This should increase general awareness and knowledge of the dynamic innovation in London/Cambridge.

Perhaps the most important accomplishment is the personal connection and engagement for each participant. We hoped we could both listen to learn and speak to provide our individual experience and perspective for the benefit of our kindred spirits in the region.

The generous hospitality of of our British hosts enabled each member of the group to relate individually to peers—formally and informally. Hopefully, connecting people everywhere to London/Cambridge through our personal experience on this trip— then using the web to extend those experiences to the awareness of many—will do good for a long time to come.

We are grateful and appreciate what so many have done for us.

Handhelds for Doctors

jeff saperstein — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:49:49 +0000

Innovator of Handheld Digital Medical Records

At the Cambridge University Pitt Building, in a program led by Omobono Digital Services, we viewed show and tell presentations by some of Cambridge’s most promising start-ups. Among several good ideas was a great one presented by Dr. Al-Ubaydli. Conversion to digital medical records has been an American national quest for the past decade and a priority for the Obama Administration. Dr. Al-Ubaydli has been working with the Feds (NIH) for the past six years to bring his hand-held medical records download program to fruition. He suggested that University of Cambridge is a great incubator to work from and he collaborates with doctors and engineers in the States and elsewhere to bring the technology to market.

Great example of global technology development, incubated in university labs, solving big problems through collaboration of doctors, hospitals, governments, and industry.

Photo Credit: Renee Blodgett http://www.downtheavenue.com/

The Guardian Dialogues

jeff saperstein — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:23:30 +0000

Last night, The Guardian featured three of our Traveling Geeks (Robert Scoble, Sarah Lacy, JD Lasica) on stage with British counterparts for a lively discussion on the demise of the newspaper as we know it and the emergence of Twitter and other less “professional” upstarts as seen by conventional media outlets.

This is a tired argument. Perhaps Sarah Lacy said it best in her wonderfully witty way, ” Maybe we should just shut down the newspapers now and avoid the ordeal of watching the slow death.” JD chimed in that it is like “Shooting dinosaurs in a barrel.” Robert, Sarah and JD each suggested that media companies must change to survive and perhaps incorporate social media, Twittering, and more democratic means of information gathering and distribution into their economic model. Basically, change or die was the message.

However, this topic is fairly narrow. While media journalists are clearly concerned about their own paychecks and pensions, this is much bigger than just whether the Guardian and other print media can survive (the moderator even had the Chutzpah to single out our own Craig Newmark and tongue-in-cheek accuse Craig of deliberately eliminating newspaper classifieds, which had been a honey pot for newspapers).

The Barbarians are at the Gates in every sector of the communications industry. Advertising agencies are being decimated by the Google model, Encyclopedias and paid resource media have been annihilated by Wikipedia, Network television conglomerates have been supplanted by Cable subscription channels and digital narrowcasting, and the movie studios are enraged by You Tube and other web sources to download feature films outside the movie theatres, on and on with the music industry and I-Tunes , etc.

In other words, the journalism industry is not unique in its economic viability being challenged. The Internet/digital media content delivery model is not just a hiccup, but a tectonic shift. Our Traveling Geeks are players and informed commentators in that shift.

We are here in Britain to both listen and engage with our counterparts. So far, it has been a great ride.

Thank You Britain!

jeff saperstein — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:49:10 +0000

Swinging with Grandson Harry Saperstein, who resides in Kensington

“Never have the Traveling Geeks owed so much to such a dedicated few.”

Badly paraphrasing Churchill, I am stirred by and grateful to the phenomenal people and organizational support who have collaborated, hosted, and worked with us these many months to bring the Traveling Geeks to Britain.
Penny Harwood and Richard Stanaro from Think London initially worked with JD Lasica and me to conceive the trip.

Roland Harwood and Rohan Gunatillake of NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, have been our gracious hosts, sponsors, and collaborators for site visits.

Karyn Barnes of EEI, East of England International, has worked very hard to schedule the Cambridge leg of our journey.

Jess Tyrell and Steve Moore have been our gracious organizers for ReBoot Britain Conference on July 6

Barbara Grull-Cacao from Think London who planned the Guardian Media Podcast and coordination with other media.

Ted Shelton of the Conversation Group spearheaded our Tweet Up scheduled for Sunday July 5 at JuJu’s

Clare Laurie of E Consultancy worked with us to develop the round table discussions for July 9.

London/Cambridge is a natural habitat for the Geeks. We share culture, curiosity, and inclination to see what is new, innovative, and beneficial for the common good. Not to be downplayed, we all know how to have a good time with lots of laughs. The Geeks will be blogging, video streaming, presenting, and conversing formally and informally with hundreds of like minded British kindred spirits through a week of intensive morning, afternoon, and evening events.

We are eager to begin.